In The End
by LorienRiverblaze
Summary: Hey! Look! Bet you thought you'd never see me again! But I did it, I wrote another one!


Disclaimer: The only things that belong to me are the characters; the Speaker, Vaughn, Ariane, and any other unnamed ones. The world belongs to Mercedes Lackey, i.e. the setting, Healers, Companions, stuff like that. The song is "In The End" by Linkin' Park. None of the lyrics belong to me; I just use them.

This isn't a sequel to Duck and Run, but it's set up the same way. Credit has to be given to Floria, who gave me an idea and I just ran away and kept it to myself for quite a while.

Know what? I think I like the depressing stuff that this kind of music puts me in mind of. Weird... Oh, but the weirdest thing is the way my spellchecker is trying to change "Vanyel" to "Vinyl" and "Elspeth" to "Telepath."

*~*~*~*~*~*

I didn't know exactly what it meant to be Chosen. At the time, the life of a Herald just looked like an exciting adventure, rescuing people, fighting bandits and the like, judging right from wrong and deciding the paths of peoples' lives. I vaguely knew about the Collegium and the training that Chosen go through to become Heralds, but the glamour of the job overpowered any thought of schooling. I'd read all the stories, heard all the tales, and practically assaulted any Herald that came into town for narratives of their daring exploits on account of their job. I knew that not every Herald led the romantic life like Vanyel, Elspeth, and all the others, but the mission still appealed to me.

Funny what a child thinks is a duty worth giving up all in her life.

Time does change opinions, as it changes all things. After hearing that incredible voice in the back of my mind, I knew that I wouldn't have to face life alone in any way. There'd always be someone there for me. That's what made life as a trainee worth it; not the love of duty, not the romantic imaginings of a barely adolescent child. The time that would change my opinions would bring about the event that would completely alter my life.

__

It starts with one thing

I don't know why

It doesn't even matter how hard you try

I'd always been a poet. Never thought about the ways I could have used my words to make training easier. I suppose that knowledge of all things comes in time. What I wouldn't give to force it to have come to me faster back then.

I'd never enjoyed learning. I liked reading, and I could put words to paper when the moment struck me, but I'd never liked it when someone sat me down and talked at me for candlemarks. I couldn't learn without the experiences to teach me. I suppose I liked doing things the hard way. I was always very stubborn; a spur of the moment, seat-of-my pants kind of girl.

I think that's why I could write; the words would just attack me, drag my hand across the page, leap from my head. I guess that's why I could write this. Something had to come out, account for who I was, who I am, who I could have been.

__

keep that in mind

I designed this rhyme

to explain in due time

All I know

I struggled through training for five years, trying to experience everything that I could to get me through it. History was my worst subject; there's absolutely no way to go back and experience what's already past.

Classes went by so slowly for me.

__

Time is a valuable thing

Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings

Watch it count down to the end of the day

The clock ticks life away

While learning indoors was kin to impossible for me, in Equestrian and Weapons I really came into my own. I knew absolutely nothing when I first came to Haven; but my talents grew, my skills sharpened, and my teachers became enamored with me. I quickly outstripped the other learners in my year group, and rapidly passed up older students and even some of the on-duty Heralds.

I was doing so well, looked up to by younger Trainees, smiled upon by peers as one of the best, and regarded by my mentors as one of them, young as I was. I should have guessed that it wouldn't last, being on top only leaves one place to go, down.

__

Its so unreal

Didn't look out below

But I didn't guess.

I soon learned all that could be taught to me about wielding Companions and weapons. So I decided to teach myself. I would invent new tricks, something on Companion-back that no one else could do, a new counter to an attack that wouldn't have been thought of, and then I'd combine the two. Vaughn was so supportive of me; I knew he was an extension of myself. A being with the same interests, same dedication to pursue a fighter's path.

We grew up together. He'd been one of the youngest Companions to have ever Chosen, only eight when we bonded. He learned about the world and I learned about the details. We shared knowledge, and I think it's probably only through his help that I got through the difficult learning process.

We spent every moment we could together; creating battle plans, imagining foes, and vanquishing shadows; returning triumphant to invented, cheering crowds.

__

Watch the time go right out the window

We would practice the steps needed to perform those imaginary feats; practice till they were flawless.

That's when my world came crashing down.

I'd been trying to get Vaughn to try something neither of us had attempted before, a rear coupled with a hind kick, designed to send hooves flying in all directions, deadly when properly executed.

I had gotten used to his excuses, so I didn't expected him to try it. I had no preparation, and I was thrown.

__

Trying to hold on

But didn't even know

I hit a tree in the Companion's Field, our favorite place to practice. Now my least favorite place to even see. My gifts were lost with a blow to the head. My ability to ride taken with one to my spine.

In the blink of an eye, in the eternity of the moment, the thought going through my head was: _Why didn't I try harder in class?_ Silly thought for one who never enjoyed education, but that difficult education was all I could claim for myself.

__

Wasted it all just to

Watch it go

After I Healed, my world crashed again.

I felt something wrong the first time I came around groggily. Something just didn't _feel_ right. There was an emptiness in my head, where there had always been a buzz of distant conversation, no matter how hard I shielded.

Though I couldn't figure out what the problem was during my first barely aware moment, realization soon struck. I didn't have my Gifts. My Gifts. After I'd learned what that buzz was, I could identify the traces of the Gift whenever something different was happening in my head.

When I Felt it gone, I first thought that being alone in my own head would be the worst burden to bear. I soon concluded that there was no way Vaughn would be able to stay with me if we couldn't be the same as we had once been.

I knew we couldn't remain together and we had already been separated by the blow, the formalities the only thing left to repudiate our bond.

The idea scared me witless. I kept the thought to myself while I Healed.

__

I kept everything inside and even though I tried

It all fell apart

The miracle of modern Healing. I was out of the wing in less than a fort-night.

And I'd renounced Vaughn in the same time span.

I couldn't let him give me up. It was hard enough, I couldn't let him be the one that hurt me more.

I couldn't stand the removal of half my heart when he agreed with me.

__

What it meant to me will eventually

be a memory

of a time when

The Healers told me that they'd found a Healing channel while I was out, they'd opened it and used it to bring me back. They seemed to think that Healing Gifts in exchange for Heraldic ones were adequate compensation. They didn't factor in the loss of Vaughn.

They saw me as a person with a new lease on life, a fresh chance to start over. I would have to deal with the life handed to me on the mangled platter everyone else thought so silver. They enrolled me in more classes, and I thought that after a while I'd be able to forget the silver and blue dreams that haunted me.

I didn't think about how many Heralds and how many Trainees would pass through the doors and into my hands for Healing. I took the light greens of a Healer-in-training, tortured with young Trainee patients with hopes of their Heraldic futures.

__

I tried so hard

And got so far

But in the end

It doesn't even matter

Even after I got my Greens, and He found Her, the hurt remained. In body I was whole, but my heart, spirit and mind were all still wounded, years later.

__

I had to fall 

And lose it all

But in the end 

It doesn't even matter

I didn't even care any more; I couldn't care when He brought Her in, his new Trainee. For him it was simply his duty as a Companion to Choose. He would do his duty to the kingdom and ruler as always. And I was supposed to resign myself to doing the same in a new position.

I refused to enjoy it.

__

One thing

I don't know why

Doesn't even matter how hard you try

The only way I knew to deal with it was to write it down, keep it close to me, so I wouldn't forget.

I would have been a great Herald.

__

Keep that in mind

I designed this rhyme

To remind myself How

I tried so hard

I kept what Vaughn and I had had close to me, remembering our closeness, how we had such a claim on each other, how we shared each other's ambitions, how we only sought to further ourselves together. And each memory was a knife in the heart.

__

In spite of the way you were mocking me

Actin' like I was a part of your property

Remembering all the times you fought with me

I'm surprised

It got so (far)

A melancholy Healer. What a joke. I was nothing I had planned, dreamed, hoped I would become. I was so completely different from the way I had seen myself when I was first Chosen. I couldn't look in the mirror. I couldn't see what I had become.

__

Things aren't the way they were before

You wouldn't even recognize me anymore

I don't want to remember what I was like before, but I can't escape it.

__

Not that you knew me back then 

But it all comes back to me

In the end

I happened to be near the gates when They rode in for the first time. Worst timing of my life. She was so scared of Haven that she fainted in the saddle. The guard at the gate noticed me, brought her over, and demanded help for the girl. I was in shock. I couldn't do anything to help her.

Oh I knew how to help her. Healing had become automatic by this time; put the injured one in front of me and I would just go into Healing-mode. But this time, nothing. I couldn't move any part of my body, not with Vaughn there, not knowing this _girl_ is the one that he decided to replace me with. Eventually the guard got the idea that I wasn't able to help through his head, and sent a passing Heraldic-Trainee to get a Healer.

Reality hit like the proverbial ton of bricks. It hurt so much to see him bring in someone else.

__

You kept everything inside and even though I tried

it all fell apart

What it meant to me

will eventually

be a memory

of a time when I

I couldn't get away from them, not while it was so difficult to move around. I almost prayed for an assignment away from Haven. Almost. I'd given up on the gods, believing they had anything to do with my life. The only one I knew was the Imp of Perverse, and we knew each other well. I felt like his personal toy, like he focused his attention on me in his spare time, and he obviously had plenty of that.

No matter how I tried to get away from the two of them they always seemed to follow me around. It had to result from her difficulties in the more physical aspects of Heraldic training. The 'fragile flower' was always coming in with extreme bruising on her arms and torso thanks to weapons training. And she always sought me out. Of course I was honor-bound to help her, called by that gods-be-damned Healing gift I'd been forced to take. If I didn't help her, I'd feel sympathy pains. Dull aches and sore muscles and a shadow feeling of whatever else she was currently suffering from. But for the life of me, I couldn't think why the frail thing would seek me for help.

__

Tried so hard

And got so far

But in the end

It doesn't even matter

Eventually she grew tougher, and she wasn't grimacing during the patching up process, and she began to talk to me. I'd feign interest, as I did for every patient. She'd tell me what she was doing, what she was planning, who was doing what, and with whom, and again I was immersed in the lives of the Heralds. As much as I had wanted to put that away, Ariane, unknowing, wouldn't let me. I found out what my old friends were up to and the goings on of the Companions. The pain came back, and I knew I couldn't live away from the Heralds, hard as it was.

__

I had to fall 

And lose it all

But in the end 

It doesn't even matter

One day, amid the next to ceaseless prattle, she turned to me and with the utmost sincerity, told me that I was the only person she could talk to. At first I thought that statement odd, since she was hardly ever quiet in my presence, but I began to find signs that I was the only one she confided in. She didn't seem to understand the pressure and pain caused by her friendliness. I had to tell her what she was doing to me.

__

I put my trust in you

Pushed as far as I can go 

For all this 

There's only one thing you should know

The next time she came to get bruises from weapons Healed, I asked her if she'd known about Vaughn's previous trainee. Which of course launched us into an extremely uncomfortable conversation that I wished I hadn't started, and wanted out of so badly. But, somehow, despite the enmity, talking to Ariane made things lighter. She'd brought me back to the life I thought had been removed. I couldn't get away from what was past, and it wouldn't ignore me and my new Gifts; I would have to deal with it. And Ariane refused to leave me alone to do it. She told me that I'd helped her and she felt indebted to return the aid. She swore she'd help me to Heal the heartache.

__

I put my trust in you

Pushed as far as I can go 

For all this 

There's only one thing you should know

The first thing she thought I needed to do was to speak with Vaughn, get everything out in the open, clear the air.

She had to drag me to that meeting.

But I suppose that dragging a chair with wheels isn't as hard to do as I wish it had been. There wasn't a thing in Valdemar that would have made me eager to go. But I couldn't exactly put my foot down.

Ariane brought me to the field, and positioned me face to face with him. I refused to open my eyes and look at him. Eventually I cracked open one eye to check and see if he was gone.

He wasn't.

He looked at me with an intense sorrow in those deep azure eyes, and I just broke down and started crying. He pushed his muzzle against my chest and I wrapped my arms around him, bawling like a baby.

__

I tried so hard

And got so far

But in the end

It doesn't even matter

It didn't matter how far I thought I'd gotten in Healing myself, seeing Vaughn again shattered it all, showed me how false that Healing was. But, true Healing was possible, if I'd only look for help. As Ariane drew closer and joined Vaughn and me in our embrace, I Felt a bond grow between the two of us. I knew where to look for help, and I knew that there would be no barrier to pass in getting to it. I'd passed it already, and the future began to look brighter.

__

I had to fall 

And lose it all

But in the end 

It doesn't even matter

Perhaps there is a way to go back and experience what is past. All you need is the right future.


End file.
